Mulaka Review15/03/2018 at 17:57CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Mulaka is one beautiful looking game, taking art cues from the Tarahumara, a real life indigenous culture from northern Mexico, everything has a solid, colourful, whittled from wood look that suits it down to it's beautifully rendered ground. Even the music is perfectly suited as the tunes are also performed using traditional instruments.
As Mulaka begins you find yourself in the shoes of the titular character himself, a Sukurúame, a type of Tarahumara Shaman gifted with the po...

TT Isle of Man - Ride on the Edge Review12/03/2018 at 16:18CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Rich Boulton.
“The reason I do it is because if you do it wrong, it will kill you.If you think it's too dangerous then go home and cut your lawn and leave us to it.”
Guy Martin
The Isle of Man TT is an infamous event, a 37-mile annual road race where riders can hit speeds over 200mph, and fatalities are commonplace with a tally over 250 since its inaugural race in 1907. Developers Kylotonn have taken on the task of recrea...

Understand the Chatter: What Poker Terms Mean21/02/2018 at 09:26RICHARD HORNE0 COMMENTS.
For anyone who wants to get involved in the poker scene, there are (generally speaking) a couple of minor stumbling blocks to overcome before it’s possible to seriously enjoy a competitive world where stakes are raised and tension grows with each passing minute. The first such challenge can be easily overcome with a bit of practice and simply involves learning the rules of the different variants of poker, or at least the ones you might encounter most commonly. After all, you want to hav...

Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review19/02/2018 at 17:33CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
It's all kicking off in 1403 Bohemia, Charles IV has kicked the bucket, and left the empire to the (not so good) King Wenceslaus IV who spends most of his time partying rather than attending all that boring old state business. So this pisses off the nobles who ask his half brother King Sigusmund of Hungary to have a word. Unfortunately he decides on a more radical solution. Sigusmund invades Bohemia, kidnaps Wenceslaus and starts to loot and pillage all the King's estates, which include Skali...

Reflecting on the Life of a Tomb Raider12/02/2018 at 22:07RICHARD HORNE1 COMMENTS.
Few gaming characters are as recognisable as Lara Croft. Since her debut in 1996, the star of the Tomb Raider series has been regarded as a worldwide sensation. On top of that, this year looks set to be another big one for the franchise, with a new film based on the 2013 reboot starring Alicia Vikander coming in March and the latest game in the series, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, planned for release later in the year. With all this on the horizon, now seems as good a time as any to look back o...

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Review26/01/2018 at 16:39CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
As The Vanishing of Ethan Carter opens, you find yourself in the shoes of detective Paul Prospero, standing on some rusty, broken down train tracks that lead into an atmospheric, beautifully realised forest. You are also in possession of a letter written by Ethan himself, and now it's up to you to find him. To spend any more time explaining the story would do the game a disservice, you really need to experience this for yourself.
Developed by The Astronauts who were responsib...

Beholder Review18/01/2018 at 16:09CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Dean Davis
This War of Mine meets the German film The Lives of Others was my initial thought about Beholder, a game that pits you as the landlord of an apartment building with an ulterior motive, you were installed there by a totalitarian state to spy on your tenants. You install video cameras in double sneaky places (not even remotely sneaky places at all), look through all of their personal belongings and through conver...

SOMA Xbox One Review15/12/2017 at 18:40CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Ror Brennan.
Two years after it first debuted on PC and PS4, Frictional's latest slice of terror finally arrives on Xbox One. Rather than the interdimensional gothic horror of Amnesia, however, SOMA opts for a near-future science fiction setting, and looks to ask questions about what it means to be human.
You awake in a Toronto apartment in 2015, in the body of Simon Jarrett, a poor sod who's recently suffered a traumatic accident. ...

Nine Parchments Nintendo Switch Review11/12/2017 at 18:09CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Ashley Fiddes.
Nine Parchments is a a co-op action RPG game from Frozenbyte, the developer of Trine and (the imo excellent) Has Been Heroes.
In Nine Parchments you lead an apprentice wizard of your choice (eight different wizards to choose from, two available at the start, with six unlockable through quests within the game) on a mission to build their grimoire with lost spells. To do this you a...

Pinball FX3 Review15/11/2017 at 17:09CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Zen Studio's Pinball FX2 has been the gold standard of Pinball games, sure Pinball Arcade has real life tables as its selling point, but Zen Studios managed to make craft, variety and fun theirs.
Which leaves us begging the question of where does the Hungarian developer go for the next generation Pinball FX3? Well first things first any tables you have already bought in Pinball FX2 can be imported into the new game free of charge, and they have all ...

Yomawari: Midnight Shadows PS4 Review27/10/2017 at 16:43CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Ror Brennan.
You know a game takes its scares seriously when the first thing it asks you to do is turn off all the lights and refrain from tearing your gaze from the screen. Yomawari: Midnight Shadows even implores you to promise not to break these rules. You might wish you did.
Much like last year's Yomawari: Night Alone, Midnight Shadows begins with a little girl and her dog. While we, unfortunately, had to witness the de...

Jettomero: Hero of the Universe Review16/10/2017 at 18:16CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
Review by Ror Brennan.
Like many games, the first thing Jettomero asks you to do is walk. Few games can make you smile through this simple interaction, but as your huge stompy robot begins to clumsily clomp across the surface of a tiny planetoid, you can't help but have a little giggle to yourself.
Jettomero: Hero of the Universe is a game about a kind-of-cute-I-guess gargantuan robot who believes he's probably the saviour of the ...

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana review13/09/2017 at 15:38CHRIS OTOOLE0 COMMENTS.
I've played Ys games before, they started as fun Zelda-a-likes with bump combat, you'd go barging into the baddies anywhere but head-on to defeat them. This is all I can remember about them, not the story. Not the characters. Just the bumpy-bumpy.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana changes this though, and I'm sure I'll have no problem retaining this intriguing tale. You start the game as Adol Christin, an impossibly beautiful boy with red hair, and the starriest ey...

South Park Won't Be Coming to Nintendo Switch29/03/2017 at 23:19RICHARD HORNE0 COMMENTS.
There hasn't been much good news for South Park fans lately. The most recent game, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, was initially supposed to be released in time for the 2016 holidays. Then it was pushed back until the beginning of this year. After that, it was delayed yet again with an expected release date sometime in during Ubisoft's next fiscal year. That means it could come out any time between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018. Now, despite all the extra time, we've received...